He calls everybody "Baby" and they all love him, me included. Originally from Mobile, he's about seen and done it all. These days it's mostly golf with his buddies and afternoons and evenings with the clientele. Any given afternoon will find a wide assortment of men shootin' the bull and relaxing with dominos, tall tales and cold beer. The juke box is powered by voluntary donations, given one buck at a time in a clean sweep of the room. Depending on who's feeding it, the tunes range from George Jones to the The Eagles.
Lookin' down the bar you can see an assortment of fellas ranging in occupation from farmer to attorney to Wal-Mart. Many are self-employed or travel. Some come just for the dominos and a Diet 7-up. The crowd usually breaks up around sevenish with the guys heading home for dinner. You might find a stray woman here and there on a weekday afternoon, but not often. The testosterone is overwhelming!! If there's no dinner and no woman to go home to, somebody usually hangs around to commiserate with you. It's the information center of town, in my experience. Everybody knows who's doing who and what's up. Don't tell me men don't gossip, I know better.
Now, Mondays and Fridays are an entirely different matter. MB brings the girls in on those days with her down to earth charm and hugs. Everything is in fun here, so if you've got a beef with somebody, take it elsewhere. I've seen more than one hothead asked to exit the back way when they thought they could bluff their way through it with G. Ain't no way, buddy. He's seen it all and then some.
The best times are parties....anybody's birthday is cause for a giant celebration and a birthday beer. I've seen cakes in all anatomically correct shapes and sizes delivered to happy recipients for their 30th, 40th, 50th or any one in-between. That's when folks arrive with gift bags and goodies to eat and the party goes on for hours.
During the summer, the bar is closed on Saturdays. But come college football season, this is the place to be on game day. Being a Tennessee bar, most of the patrons are UT fans....except for G, who still roots for the Tide every third Saturday in October. He and MB dress in their finest Bama duds and ring the cowbell everytime EITHER team scores. There's a grill smokin' outside the back door on those days, as well as for the Florida game. Everybody brings something to go-with like white beans, cornbread or their own specialty.
It's dark in there, as bars tend to be. One afternoon as I flung open the back door and my eyes adjusted down from the bright sunlight, I thought I saw something down the bar kind of unusual. And yes, it was indeed a large talking bird. Other times some regular will bring his dog in to lay around (only if well behaved, of course). A good dog can sleep right throught the jokes and pool.
There's other watering holes around here, but this one's my home and a place where I feel safe going in by myself as a single gal. If anybody was to ever get out of hand with old Poopie, there'd be hell to pay! I imagine G would throw 'em out into the kudzu never to be found until winter.